Betrayals and Brutality (NaNoWriMo)
by narphoenix
Summary: In which seasoned assassin Karrin Fitz discovers that betraying Cipher is even more horrendously complicated than she thought. She has backup, in theory, but everyone on her team has at least some kind of crazy. Sigh. It's a good thing she's used to chaos.
1. Chapter 1

There are three accepted rules of thumb when betraying a criminal syndicate. One: stick to the plan. Two: stick to the plan. And three?

Stick to the GORRAM plan.

However, for all his apparent genius, my _dearest friend_ Brain seemed to be utterly incapable of understanding this fine point of logistics. I deduced this detail with fine and highly refined powers of observation. One, the alarm was blaring. Two, that Fucking Bitch Lovrina was screeching that he had decided to _resign_ (Ahem). And three, I silently promised Brain an ass kicking.

Everything around me crystallized. My arms tensed, my heart sped up, my body sang with the danger. Muscle was the only allied trainer close at hand against several competent others. I barely traded a glance with the large man.

My gun was in my hands as Muscle kicked a grunt's knee in. I fired a pair of bullets, putting two grunts on the floor. One peon reached for his belt, and my enormous friend picked the poor guy up and flung him across the room. One of the bigger ones tried to tackle me, but he blatantly telegraphed the move. I dodged, squeezed the trigger, and the attacker suddenly lost his head.

Muscle and I were trained killers. We had the element of surprise. The deaths we caused were almost boring, really.

The metallic stench of blood hung in the air. Bodies littered the floor. Muscle and I were heaving, and I realized my ears were ringing. Despite wanting to scream at the nasty surprise, I simply barked, "Muscle. Clearly, there's been a change of plans. I'll get Tongue. Find Brain and defend him. Overall, _keep moving_."

I sprinted out, barely looking back to see that Muscle already sent out his Garchomp and the pair were running out the other door. I figured Muscle had the right idea, and I sent out Elaine.

Even for a Galvantula, Elaine is pretty hyper. When I broke into a sprint towards the interrogation rooms, Elaine was way ahead of me when an enormous noise nearly knocked us both on our asses.

A green ball the size of my head erupted from one of the interrogation rooms. Tongue was standing next his Gothitelle Mary as she made another Energy Ball at the opposite wall. A man I had never seen before stood with his mouth agape, "Y-you're a _turncoat_."

Tongue's grin was positively vulpine, "I like that term. Yup, we're turncoats. Eye," he gestured to me, "this is random prisoner number I-don't-care. He was just escaping."

The prisoner looked absolutely torn, "B-b-but, my Poke-"

"_Go_. Quickly. That giant hole in the wall is not just for kicks."

The man looked like he was going to argue, so I stepped in, "This floor. On the other side. If you're going to get your Pokémon, do it now while they're distracted."

He looked like he was going to gush with gratitude, but I waved him off, "_Go._"

As I heard the man's footsteps echoing in the hall, Tongue frowned at me, "You probably sent him on a suicide mission."

I shrugged and tried not to let that bother me, "The alternative was him arguing here and wasting time."

The Gothitelle before us cut in, /I find morality as interesting as the next woman, but we need to move, please. /

I resisted the temptation to smack myself as I saw grunts rushing in. Tongue and I quickly returned Elaine and Mary and ran out the hole as quickly we possibly could.

Outside was a freaking a war zone.

You see, we're all trained assassins, but Brain plays absolutely nasty. So while Muscle used his more mobile tanks of Pokemon to cover Brain's team, the lanky nerd was going completely to town with his Pokemon. A Vaporeon licked her paw as several soldiers clawed at the globes of water around their heads. A Gardevoir ghosted to and fro, casually ripping enemies apart with her mind or blowing holes in them with enormous blasts of light the size of a basketball across. A Breloom and a Gengar, working in concert: the latter blasting foes from a distance while the former literally punched holes through anyone trying to get close. A Skarmory firing feathers like storms of daggers, killing many with every blow.

But the star of the show was Brain's Charizard Albert. Brain had talked about stealing his sister's Mega Locket, but I didn't think he actually had the balls to do it. But based on the jet black dragon punching with blue fire coating his fists, I was wrong. His Charizard was absolutely rending everyone who got anywhere near either trainer with such an absolute ferocity that I wanted to hide in terror. It was simultaneously damn impressive and absolutely terrifying.

And Brain and Muscle were going to lose anyway.

Don't get me wrong, the two were absolutely deadly in pretty much every form combat you could think of, but there were a lot of bodies up against them, and eventually it didn't matter how good you were. You got worn down, tired, wounded. Even now, the two were starting to slow down, and Lovrina was screaming something about making sure they died or else she'd "soooooo kill everyone else here."

(I'm not kidding. She actually said it like a valley girl. I always hated the sound of her voice.)

I hated the thought of doing it, but I'd need to create a huge amount of destruction extremely quickly if I wanted us to have a decent chance at getting away. I made eye contact with Brain's Gardevoir in between her various bouts of destruction.

Eye? Do you have an idea? she asked.

Yup. Start running like hell. I'm gonna use Mort.

The Gardevoir paled slightly, but relayed the situation to Brain and Muscle. A second later, most all of their Pokemon were safely in their balls except for their fliers. They started fleeing at a very high pace as Lovrina whooped. It was almost pathetic to see how much Brain could manipulate his sister.

You see, despite being human, Lovrina was a predator at the end of the day. Predators cannot help but seize upon any weakness they see. It was their nature. And someone with that knowledge could use that to her advantage.

I threw my ball, and a Heat Rotom burst out. Without any prompting, a large amount of fire grew in his hand and a manic grin spread across his face.

I never got the point of Cipher's obsession with Shadow Pokemon. They were really not easy to control at all, and Mort was a little erratic even for a Shadow. My voice was sharp as I firmly scolded him, "No, Mort! No fire for now. Use Shadow Storm on the army over there!"

And then chaos erupted.

It's very very hard to describe a Shadow Move. Thomas with his Togekiss brand aura sight described them as not-purples and not-blacks shrouding the Pokemon executing the move, or else forming into different shapes for special attacks. When he took a look at Mort performing Shadow Storm, for example, Thomas said he saw an enormous twister the same not-purples and not-blacks as all Shadow techniques.

But most people don't see auras.

So instead of seeing a twister of the not-colors, all I saw were masses of people flying through the air. Legions of them, suddenly lifted off the ground hundreds of feet with absolutely no discernable cause. They circled at incredibly high speeds, and whenever two people collided, at least one of them would be ground to an absolute paste, or become otherwise obliterated in a gruesome explosion of blood and gore. Lovrina had noticed the invisible twister heading for her and long since teleported away with her Gallade, but everyone caught in that cyclone simply died. If not from colliding with people in the air, then either from being flung from the invisible vortex at high speed into something decidedly solid, or from falling hundreds of feet from the air and onto dry, cracked earth.

How did Sesame Street put it? Oh yeah: this day was brought to you by the color red.

Even I wasn't quite jaded enough yet to be completely immune to the sheer amount of life just… finished, today. I returned Mort to his ball before he could decide to burn something to the ground and took a solid second to just think. The plan was to steal into the dead of night a week from now. Just quickly be gone. Now as far I was aware, we were all majorly worn down before the main events even start, we were kicking off low on supplies, and everyone in Cipher was doubtless going to be made aware of our betrayal very very quickly.

In all likelihood, all of us-all 28 of us-were going to end up exactly like the spatters on the ground before long.

Almost literally reading my mind, Tongue pondered aloud, "How long until we follow these guys? How long until we die too? People don't just up and betray Cipher."

I was about to answer when, in the direction of the base, I heard a sudden explosion. Almost certainly Brain's handiwork: at least he didn't choose a time when we were completely unprepared, just 90% unprepared. It didn't take a lot to see his thought process: even though it had only happened twice before, it was almost traditional that betraying Cipher was accompanied by blowing shit up.

I restrained a giggle at the thought of Lovrina's face when she saw the explosions on top of everything else that happened today. It was the sort of random, almost delusional thing that lightened my mood after I spent way too much time fighting for my life. It beat curling up into a ball and crying about it, for sure.

Aloud, I only said, "Of course people just up and betray Cipher. We're people. We did it. God knows for how long, but we _did _do it."

Tongue gave a half choke, half laugh at that. He then reached into his pocket and threw a ball. Shiba, his Talonflame, gave a look of absolute disdain of all the filth around her, then consented to allow Tongue to climb on. I followed suit by sending out Thomas and saying, "Come on. We have a rendezvous point, and I'll be damned if I let Brain ruin _all_ of the plan."

**Hey guys! This is my first real crack at a systematic fanfiction. Since I am entirely too busy and too unmotivated to do this under normal circumstances, I am getting my ass in gear by using NaNoWriMo as incentive to do this. This is not, of course, super well polished, so I would be much obliged if you review.**

**narphoenix, over and out.**


	2. Chapter 2

The hike up to the former Cave Poke Spot gave me plenty of time to think about the situation. Tongue had wanted to fly up on our Pokemon, before I pointed out that while two people flying in the air could look unremarkable in the bright light, two people flying up a mountain with nothing of apparently of any note any longer would stick out just a little.

It was an ideal situation anyway. Tongue was perceptive enough to understand that I wanted peace and quiet, and we travelled in companionable silence as I walked through the situation in my head.

My first thought was that I was going to kill Brain when I first saw him again. It was also my every consecutive thought up until the seventeenth, which was when I managed to calm down enough to approach this more rationally.

In an ideal world, the emotions in this situation would simply dissipate magically and allow us all to work together without interruption. Cipher was going to be howling for our blood given how publically we embarrassed them, and if we didn't have damn near perfect group cohesion, we may as well have walked straight back to where we came from, thrown ourselves fully roasted on a platter. and maybe even put apples in our mouths for good measure.

Unfortunately, desperation, anger, and sheer terror were not so easy to manage. I was not bad at all when it came to deferring emotions, but that was not constant among our team. In fact, among all of us, I was one of the few with the coping mechanisms to ensure my emotions didn't bubble to the surface at inopportune times. I also knew everyone well enough that I knew how to help _them_ along to prevent their emotions from backfiring. My secret to both was simple: my coping mechanism also happened to be what helped me keep things together. And so I asked myself four questions.

First, what were my priority objectives? In this instance, my main priority was very simple: live. This also implied keeping them team alive, as I needed the clout they'd give me, even ignoring the simple personal detail that I got along with them. I'd also eventually need to take the fight to Cipher without it being absolutely suicidal.

Second, what were my obstacles to completing my objectives? Cipher, obviously, but they were a nebulous threat, something that didn't immediately threaten my objectives, but that would be fatal to them in the long run. More saliently, I had to make sure the group was in sync. This was going to be a bit difficult: Brain, for example, loathed having his freedoms impugned in any way. This was going to clash a lot given everyone's reaction to the curveball he just threw us. I had no doubt he had good reasons, but we were now far more desperate than we should have been. The lanky researcher definitely had his limitations, but he was incredibly and terrifyingly intelligent, not stupid. It was incredibly frustrating that he just went ahead and-!

Back on track, Karrin. Focus.

Brain was smart, and he absolutely loathed having his freedoms hindered, including his near pathological need to keep secrets. We all had various reasons for betraying Cipher, but Brain hadn't seen fit to share his reasons with us. It was not unreasonable to conclude that his reason for betraying Cipher early was related to his reason for betraying Cipher period, and he was unlikely to share that detail. This was going to clash up against our curiosity and our need to know just exactly why we were thrust into such a desperate situation with no warning whatsoever. I recognized the problematic impulse in me and clamped down on it, but I could not miraculously do the same in the others.

Which brought me to my third question: what were my assets? In this case, they were entirely straightforward and without complication: I knew this team well. I knew its members' patterns, their ticks and foibles, and I was fully confident that I could figure out how to shape their emotions to help us all out.

And the final question was one for which I had a few half baked ideas, but the full answer would only come as the situation developed further: how do I use my assets to circumvent my obstacles to complete my objective?

Tongue and I walked into a very tense scene in the former Poke Spot we appropriated as our rendezvous point. Margaret, Muscle's Clefable, was pacing in focused figure eights: clockwise around Muscle, counterclockwise around Brain. Her lips were pulled taut, her little fists balled up, and her little wings were flaring in and out. Nikola, Brain's Skarmory, was shaking oddly, lost in his own dream world, and his mate, Muscle's Mandibuzz Zetian, was nuzzling him, trying to get him back to reality. Muscle's Magnezone Otto and Brain's (since de-Mega Evolved) Charizard Albert were completely opposite each other: Albert seemed to be idly picking his teeth with a claw, while Otto gave him a glare that would have withered a forest. Emmy, Brain's Gardevoir, nodded at me as I walked in, but gave no other indication that anyone who was not Brain was a non-threat.

And Muscle pointedly had his back to Brain.

Ooh boy.

Tongue seemed to have done some thinking of his own on the way up, or else he was being very quick on his feet when he saw the tableaux before us. He walked straight up to Muscle and gave his boyfriend a kiss on the lips, short but tender.

The large man, for his part, stopped devoting so much of his attention to actively not looking at Brain. Tongue whispered something into Muscle's ear, and the larger man gave a small laugh.

I, for my part, simply sent out some choice members of my Pokemon party. Sigrun, mama Medicham who she was, simply stood next the door, on guard for threats. My Excadrill Sanya walked over right next to Muscle and gave the man a smile and a small wave. Thomas, for his part, simply went over to Brain and said, loud enough for all of us to hear, "Dearie, that was rather impressive. Would you like to tell us how you performed that little trick of yours?"

Translation from Thomas-ese to English: what, precisely, the hell just happened?

Brain arched an eyebrow at the Jubilee Pokemon before replying, voice dryer than the desert we just came from, "But don't you know a magician never reveals his secrets?"

I'm not sure which of us was more ready to facepalm: me, or Tongue.

All at once, the place _erupted_. Margaret's voice was impossible to hear over the din (she tended to get quiet when she was mad), but the Moonblast held in her hand and pointed at Brain combined with the very angry Emmy positively screaming at her gave a pretty good idea of her attitude towards the situation. Otto had almost flat out attacked Albert, but the Charizard was quick enough to get behind the Magnezone and stubborn enough to stay there. Poor Nikola looked like he was ready to have a breakdown, and Zetian was glaring daggers at anyone who got near them. Muscle was trying to lunge at Brain (who had wisely moved out of the way), but Sanya, bless his heart, restrained Muscle by grabbing onto the man's leg and refusing to let go.

Annoying, all in all, but anticipated.

My whistle was sharp enough that it pierced entirely through the screaming and the yelling and the near violence. All at once, everyone jumped and then was silent. A lesser person would have been intimidated, given that all these violent and clearly powerful individuals were angry and giving me their full attention, but it took far more than that to impress _me_.

I mean, for crying out loud, I had seen Miror B rampage and bought enough time for an escape, once.

I wasn't yelling, but my voice wasn't a whisper either. "All right everyone, here's the deal. We just turned on one of the most powerful criminal syndicates ever to exist in the history of the world, and trying to kill each other is not conducive to staying alive. The concerns we have are… not small, but if we try to murder each other instead of planning a way to live through what will undoubtedly be some of the most violent and terrifying attempts on our lives, that would be ideal."

Muscle, of course, brought up one of the points I was hoping someone would address, "But if _Brain_," Muscle took a second to glare at the scientist, "just does random shit like this, we aren't going to live long either."

I nodded, acknowledging the point. Muscle was far more amenable when he felt validated, recognized. "That is absolutely true. But Brain," I turned to the lanky nerd, "you aren't an idiot. You don't just do random shit like this without a reason, right?"

Brain nodded, "There was... a critical research element in Cipher that I could not allow to occur before we left. If it had, it would have caused such a lethal blow against us attempting to fight them that 'betrayal' would have lasted about a nanosecond before turning into 'death'. I thought I had a week before it would occur. My dearest, lovely sister Lovrina," you could hear the sarcasm dripping from those words, "decided that she was going to be a bitch and do it today. I only found out about 30 seconds before I made the call to kick things off."

Wow. That was surprisingly forthcoming of Brain. Which either meant that the whole story he gave us was a complete and total lie, or there was at least one very critical detail that painted it in a whole new light. I wanted to interrogate him further on the point, but that would have hindered my position: I was trying to foster trust, not suspicion.

Tongue apparently couldn't resist the lure, "Just how badly could a bit of research sabotage the team? It seems like a bit of a leap to make."

When Tongue asked his question, Brain clenched his hands into fists. Something about that question unnerved the researcher. I would have been tempted to say that it had to do with interpreting Tongue's question as the former interrogator insinuating an attack on Brain's intelligence, but a part of me disliked that explanation. There seemed to be something more to it, some amount of emotion whose source I couldn't identify.

At this point, my curiosity screamed at me to figure out what Brain was hiding. The part of me that acted, though, cut Brain off before he could give another thoughtless reply, "Does it really matter? Brain's smart enough to understand the research better than we ever could. Right now, we just need to trust that Brain knew what he was doing." I gave Brain a very wry look, "Given that we all just dropped what we were doing at moment's notice to help him betray Cipher, I would wager that we already do trust him, and we just need to keep on doing it, Agreed?"

There were nods of assent all around, and I smiled, "Good. We need to get some rest now, though, and this place is safe. Sorta. Sigrun and… Margaret, take first watch. Thomas and Emmy, you're after."


End file.
